“Power blinds us,
Hubris breaks us,
Fortune smiles on us,
but always with irony.”
-Thucydides
The ancient Stoic philosopher was not wrong when he wrote these prescient words over 2,400 years ago. The sad tragedy unfolding in America now mirrors his warning.
When the history of Trumpism is written, it will embody examples of every line in this bygone statement—power, hubris and irony will all be included. The inability of this political cohort to recognize that they embody all of these traits signals clearly their inevitable downfall.
It is a sorrowful tale of an American political party and its leader who have relentlessly eschewed science and logic so profoundly in their unabated quest for power that they are now in the process of being “hoisted by their own petard.” That is the very definition of irony. This is a current history lesson we should all grasp and understand, then affirm that it is not in our interest as a nation to perpetuate and continue it this November.
Bruce Schultz